One of my most anticipated films of SXSW was Kiss of the Damned. Not really based on anything particularly significant about the film other that it had (a) vampires and (b) a trashy enough trailer to pique my interest in a big way. I mean, if we're all being honest, they don't put a half naked female vampire chained to a bed out there because it's going to drive audience members way do they?
I'm going to stray really close and perhaps a smidge over the spoiler line in what follows. But I don't think it's going to take away from the film much ... if Kiss of the Damned is going to speak to you it's not because of the minor plot point transgressions I make below.
12 O'Clock Boys was my most anticipated documentary of SXSW. With great expectations sometimes comes at least moderate disappointment. 12 O'Clock Boys has many merits but it failed to deliver fully on the promise it had captured my imagination with. That of getting to both witness and to an extent better understand a vibrant sub-culture in I'd never myself get to be a part of. It's got some unbelievably fantastic visuals and an amazing premise. For the former alone I think it's worth a watch, but be aware it may leave your curiosity somewhat unsatisfied.
The picture follows a few years in the life of Pug, a pre-teen whose goal in life is to join the 12 O'Clock boys. The crew in question is a Baltimore based collective of dirt bike (and ATV) riders who enjoy the occasional Sunday jaunt through the city's streets. Pug practices his moves on a small ATV as his mother (Coco) worries that he's got his motivations mixed up. All the while raising her children and dealing with tragedy in a tough environment. The action follows Pug's ups and downs closely, at the cost of going deeper into the outlaw bike culture that at least for me was the main draw of the film. I'd never heard of this group or this uniquely Baltimore activity, but the rebel concept and fantastic trailer drew me in for the picture's first SXSW screening.
I respect the director's choice to take a fly on the wall approach to things focused on Pug. But I think it reduced the opportunity to more deeply cover the actions of the 12 O'Clock Boys and the actual members' lives and motivations. One of the few onscreen interviews with Steven, an adult member is all too brief. He mentions he no longer rides illegally, playing a supportive role. The value of which is clear given the police focus on tracking the bikes both on the streets and from the air. There's one of the few less urban onscreen moments where he takes some of the young wanna be riders out to to work on their skills in a safer environment. I can't help but thing that he and some of the older participants would have made for a richer take on the material. Albeit perhaps without the more familiar coming of age narrative arc Pug affords.
There's mention that the group has been involved in fatal incidents - but implicitly suggests those come only when the police chase them. I never really understood what the local dynamics were, who the riders were and what had them taking to the street on what I feel I know from The Wire as "church day." There were multiple media mentions about the scourge of these Wednesday ride alongs - but little investigation as to where the truth lay.
The site of the riders is awesomely impressive as they flow as a noisy swarm, often balanced on only half their tires. Director Lotfy Nathan nails the visuals - his high def, slow motion photography of the 12 O'Clock boys is true onscreen poetry. Alone reason enough to see the film on the big screen. It's when he switches the focus back to Pug that the story is interesting, often wrenching but somewhat more familiar. He has a gift with animals and a desire to become a veterinarian - a challenging goal I sincerely hope he achieves. Maybe he'll get to ride with the big boys as well, but as ambitions go it's a bit harder to root for.
Throughout, bike gang (and I'm not sure that's the right term) is kept at a distance. Leaving one to wonder who they are, why they do it, and at what risk. These are all questions I left the theater wishing I'd seen more answers to. Or barring that at least seen more footage of the group in action.
Some pictures from the film's SXSW post-film Q&A follow.
I'm excited to get a bit into reviews for some of the films I saw at SXSW 2013. There's a lot to cover, so for the most part I'm going to keep things a bit shorter than I often do. Unless something really speaks to me - either positively or negatively. Given the length of what follows it seems I had more to say about The Great Hip Hop Hoaxthan I'd originally expected to.
The Great Hip Hop Hoax was one of those documentaries where the idea was far more interesting than the execution. The story is about the allegedly almost super famous rap duo of Silibil n' Brains who didn't quite make it while living a lie. The latter being that while presenting as California based rappers they were in fact from Scotland.
OMG! - Seriously, Rich - why the hell did you ruin it for us?!?
Well, before you think that let me clarify. That secret is not just in every written synopsis of the film, but it's also made clear in the first few minutes of the picture. So ... imagine you know that going in, then the tension has got to be about how they found out ... right? Well no, that's not quite it. A big part of the problem is that there really wasn't any tension in the film. Without the what happens when they're caught hook it's actually the story you've probably seen a bunch of times before in music docs. A band starts to have some success, enjoys the high life (perhaps a bit too much) and then doesn't find the success they hoped for. And at the end of the picture at least one of the members is still chasing the dream of hitting it it big some years later while the other has moved on. The big difference here is the underwhelming level of drama ... as well as the fact that Silibil n' Brains aren't convincingly the second coming of the hip hop messiah regardless. In comparison, most other rock docs share the narrative arc, lack the pretending not to be Scottish hook, and more than make up for it via enjoyable music.
After the jump I'm going to let fly with some more details - including some that possibly might be considered spoilers. So if you want to stop now that's cool. Just leaving knowing that the greatest trick that The Great Hip Hop Hoax may have played is getting one to sit through the entire film, only to discover...
While I took a nice set of photos of Joss Whedon and the cast of Much Ado About Nothing some more enterprising folks took pretty nice quality video of their entire Q&A. The hour long SXSW Film panel session Much Ado About Much Ado seems to be present in the two YouTube segments embedded below.
One of the things I always enjoy doing at SXSW is taking photos. This year I worked a bit harder at it - and I think the results are better for it. Most specifically I was lucky enough to attend Red Carpet arrivals photo shoots for Drinking Buddies, Much Ado About Nothing, and Kiss of the Damned. In addition I tried to grab at least decent Q&A photos for Springbreakers, Short Term 12, Licks, 12 O'Clock Boys, Everyone's Going to Die, and Big Ass Spider! This resulted in photos of a good subset of the Joss Whedon acting universe, James Franco, Anna Kendrick, Olivia Wilde, Joe Swanberg, Jake Johnson, Ti West, Ron Livingston and many more. Basically too many to put in one post. But I hope people will enjoy checking out a fuller gallery I've posted on Flickr. Even that's just a subset of the photos I took. Though at some point looking at Red Carpet photos becomes about as exciting as seeing your neighbor's snapshots from Europe. After a while your eyes are still going to glaze over regardless of how beautiful Paris is in real life.
While I'm happy with the photos, the most fun part of the red carpets for me was chatting with the other photographers (and interviewers). It's like any other SXSW line, but with even more intensely focused (and interesting people). You're all stuck there (very literally during the wait for the guests to arrive on) with nothing else to do but chat, swap tips, and in one case checkout another photographer's shots of Cirque du Soleil performers loose in Austin. Which made me chuckle thinking about how if they were wandering about on 6th Street one might not really even notice anything out of sorts.
If there's a subject you'd like a closer look at (for example if you're in it)- or you have interest in re-using any of the photos just shoot me a note. I only used lower resolution reductions for this post. For a look at a much bigger collection of photos (including the higher resolution versions) feel free to jump over to this gallery.
I've included a fair number of photos after the jump (which is still a small subset of the main gallery). And of course stay tuned for running commentary on the SXSW film's I watched over the past week. That number is approaching 30 - so it may take a while ...
Spring Breakers: Harmony Korine (director), James Franco, and 3/4 of the film's female co-stars
I was incredibly lucky to have the chance to photograph the red carpet arrivals for Joss Whedon's new film Much Ado About Nothing. Everyone was super nice and generous with their time - and the movie totally rocks. I'm still knee deep in photo processing (between that and the Drinking Buddies red carpet) so don't have those to share yet. Hoping to have those pictures up in the next few days. But in the meantime I'll share a brief snippet of the master himself. He's actually answering a question posed by one of the reporters standing next to me on the arrivals line. I'm sort of impressed with myself for resisting the temptation to jump the barrier and give the guy a big hug. But as I didn't I can share the video snippet below, having avoided incarceration and all...
(by the way - you may need to turn the volume up a bit to catch what he's saying)
My first film of SXSW was Sake-Bombthe fish out of water tale of a young sake maker who comes to California seeking his the woman he'd fallen in love with in Japan. Along the way his cousin (clearly a douchebag of the year finalist) is enlisted to aid him in the quest. Part comedy, part drama and presumably part social critique Sake-Bomb isn't going to be one of my festival favorites. I rarely laughed, the asshole cousin makes the attempted shift to redemption way too late, and subtlety as a concept doesn't exist anywhere onscreen. That said, Gaku Hamada as Naoto delivers an enjoyable performance even while constrained by the goings on around him.
Judging by the attendance it's clear a ton of heart went into the making of the film. I tried to capture some of that energy below. What follows are pictures of the director and cast. Most notably cracking open a sake cask in celebration of their opening night screening. Click on any of the pictures for a closer view.
One of my most anticipated films of SXSW was Kiss of the Damned. Not really based on anything particularly significant about the film other that it had (a) vampires and (b) a trashy enough trailer to pique my interest in a big way. I mean, if we're all being honest, they don't put a half naked female vampire chained to a bed out there because it's going to drive audience members way do they?
